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Edinburg Man Loses Money to IRS Imposters

5 years 11 months 3 weeks ago Monday, April 02 2018 Apr 2, 2018 April 02, 2018 11:09 PM April 02, 2018 in News

EDINBURG – A Rio Grande Valley man thought by ignoring phone IRS calls he could avoid falling victim. It turns out the criminals somehow found a way to get his money.

Edinburg resident Leonel Salinas says losing any amount of money can hurt.

“Every penny impacts everybody. I mean, we work for our money and if you got $100 missing, it’s $100 out of your pocket,” he says.

He tells CHANNEL 5 NEWS he’s owned a trucking company since 2009. He says he got threatening phone calls from IRS imposters months ago.

Salinas says they advised him to call them back. He says he ignored the call and thought everything was fine. But when his wife checked their bank account last week.

“She called me and said, ‘No, I haven’t drawn out any money at all.’ And we started from there, making phone calls,” he explains. “And come to find out they did withdraw money out of my checking account. And to this minute, we don’t know who.”

Salinas says the criminals did leave evidence behind on his bank statement. He says an IRS USATaxPymnt transaction revealed they had taken over $1,000.

He says he went to the Better Business Bureau to file a complaint.

Dolores Salinas with the BBB says she saw the red flags right away.

“The IRS will not call you. They will not debit your account. That’s not the way the IRS works,” she warns. “The IRS will take your payments. The IRS will not ask you to provide banking information.”

Salinas says he reached out to the IRS. He was told the charge wasn’t from the agency.

He says he’s working with his bank to solve the issue but there's a possibility he may not get his money back.

“They got their rules like any other bank. They say if you don’t report the loss before 24 hours or in 24 hours, they ain’t going to be responsible on anything,” he says.

Salinas says he’s now changing his account information.

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